


Concussed

by IwriteDreams



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Fluffy, but he can try, dadvid, david doesn't have all the awnsers, max has legit problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-04-07 02:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19075207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IwriteDreams/pseuds/IwriteDreams
Summary: Max deserves to have somebody who knows all the answers, seeing as he's gone through life with people who only knew the problems. David wishes that person was him. He tries and tries, but he thinks that he isn't.





	1. Day 1

Max never meant to get into an argument with his mother.

Max never meant to have her, yelling at him as she drove him to the bus stop to camp Campbell, swearing and reminding him for the fiftieth time that he was a mistake, in all ways. He certainly never meant for her to get so enraged at him, just sitting silently in the backseat apologizing when he could, she fueled her own anger the longer she yelled. It only ended when she told him she might just leave him at Camp Campbell.

His mother says a lot of things that Max knew she didn’t mean, or at least, a lot of things that she wouldn’t carry through. He expected that statement to be one of them.

Max’s face was pressed up against the plastic glass of the bus, shitty brown chairs with uncomfortable coverings and holes in them immediately under him. He’d been there for hours. It was dark. The Quartermaster had left to run errands, David sat outside in the empty parking lot, watching to streetlights turn on when the sun dropped. Gwen sat next to Max inside the bus that smelled of melting plaster.

He felt her panic. She wasn’t very good at hiding it. He figured his parents just forgot. An hour after everybody else was picked up from the parking lot where the bus stopped. David, with a long smile, claimed that he’d call Max’s parents and it all will be settled.

Max turned over David's cellphone after a nice round of Tetris, and David stepped outside to make the call. Max had tried to complain, but his defenses seemed weak when David stopped, and looking stunned, ushered Gwen over. There were hushed words and a lot of flipping through papers. Flip, flip, flip. Emergency numbers he assumed, but he understood what was happening.

He parents weren't answering.

David’s smile grew more and more crooked, and David related to child services a few minutes ago, after five hours of not responding to any number they had.

Max just watches David. Still sitting in the cold of the parking lot. Just staring out at the road, probably hoping for a car to slow down, park, and claim this problem of a child.

But no car comes. And finally, David stands up and answers his phone.

Max is hopeful. Finally, a response, but David’s face draws itself thinner as he listens to what’s on the other end, which means it’s unrelated, or bad news.

David hangs up, looks back towards the busy street for a minute more, then starts moving towards the bus again.

Max hears but doesn't see David step up the uneven stairs, and Gwen asks him “What’s happening?”

David sounds defeated.

“Max. I think we need to talk.”

That’s when Max remembers what his mother said.

That’s when Max understands. They hated him so much they performed a great feat just on the chance that they'd escape him.

And it worked.

Gwen stands up, and stands next to David- both of them, looking at him, as he stares stubbornly out the window into the dark parking lot.

“Are they gone?” Max asks.

David sucks in a breath and tensely releases it.

“Max… your parents… yes. They are gone.”

Max wants to turn around and tell David to not cry, but he knows that it’s futile and that if he turns around his hypocrisy will be exposed.

“Max. Max, hey, I’m so, so sorry.” Max feels David’s weight on the shitty bus seat as he sits down next to him. David already knows not to touch Max.

“Max… You’re uh… your home is empty. All that’s left is paperwork. For you. Your personal papers.

Max can’t say a thing.

“They… They’re stupid, Max.”

… Only a hint of David's usual optimism pokes through the cracks.

“And, I know, that’s a hurtful thing to say, but I feel that that is the fact of the matter. If they couldn’t see what a wonderful kid you are Max, then they didn’t deserve you!”

David is already trying to convince him that his parents where shitty people.

Max doesn’t need to be convinced of that.

He needs to be convinced that he’ll never miss them.

“THe… uh, the nice people on the phone said that you are under our care still.” David said. “Me, Gwen and Quartermaster. That… we can turn you over to a foster home when you’re ready. Or an orphanage….”

Max didn’t think that either of those things should be options. He of all people? Would never be in a foster home. It didn’t sound like something that belonged in his life.

“For now Max… I want you to stay with us.”

…

“Just… until we decide what we can do.”

…

“Max, I don’t want you to feel unwanted.”

…

“You’re not unwanted Max, you’re so-”

“Shut up!” Max growled. “I’ve heard it all before. Yadda yadda, redeeming qualities my ass.” Max’s eyes clenched closed tightly, and tears spilled over. The parking lot had 38 parking spaces in total.

David doesn’t say anything more, just tells Gwen “I’ll contact quartermaster. We should take Max with us back to the camp. Clean out for the outdoor school students… and figure out what we can do tomorrow.”

Gwen seemed unable to object to that plan, so she said nothing, and allowed David to stand up, and walk outside, Max watched David from behind as he called quartermaster. And Gwen silently took the seat next to him. Why sit next to somebody when the whole rest of the bus is empty? It’s dumb.

Max can see just in the slight hunch of David’s shoulders that he’s still blubbering like a baby. It wasn’t even his problem. But David always was a loser.

Max ends up crying himself to sleep. And the next thing he knows, David is next to him, gently tapping his shoulder to wake him. “Max… We're back at camp.”

Max’s eyes open just a bit.

“There’s a spare bunk in the counselor's cabin and plenty of blankets. You should grab your pillow from the back and join us in there, okay?”

Max’s eyes close again, but David knows he got through to him.

David places a hand on Max’s shoulder for a brief moment, before removing it.

Max waits until David has left the bus again before trying to get up. He wipes the water off the window where they could be used as evidence against him, and trudges to grab his pillow.

All he knows before a headache claims him, and sleep crushes upon him slowly, is Gwen and David calling out to him from the main room, over their hot cocoa mugs and paperwork he's never seen.

“Goodnight, You little shit!”

“Goodnight Max! Sleep tight!”

Max clutches his blankets and thinks that maybe he should've been more prepared for this.


	2. The Unwinnable Battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was about to leave this project for deadd..... I RETURRNNNNN

The next day is a complete blur to him. For the first time in years, Max wakes up when his body tells him too; Not when David bursts into his tent, or at the sound of loud music, and the smell of smoke. No angered voices, shouting loudly can be heard. Max opens his eyes, in the warm clutches of blankets staring at the log walls of the counselor's cabin. 

 

Max pulls himself out of bed, amazed that he fell asleep without Mr. Honey nuts. Amazed and saddened that he didn’t even think about his poor bear as it sat sadly in the back of the bus with the rest of his luggage. 

 

Mr. Honey nuts would forgive him. 

 

He stepped outside, still in his clothes from yesterday, into the main room to see David massaging the bridge of his nose with scrunched eyes, and Gwen’s hair sticking in eight places as she was dozing off with a cup of coffee in hand. 

 

David noticed Max standing there first. “Max! Good morning, how’d you sleep?”

 

“Fine.” He said, “You two look ready to die, did you sleep at all?”

 

“We slept a bit, but we’ll need to do some catching up. Sleep is something you don’t cut corners on!” And David already has a liars smile affixed to his face. 

 

“David. I’m not a fucking idiot. What the hell happened?”

 

David heaved a sigh, but the smile didn’t melt from his face. Not one bit.

 

“Well, there’s a lot of laws to jump through, and a lot of issues with what’s happening. But Gwen and I are gonna get you outta here safe and sound as soon as we can!”

 

Max paused. He figured that was the answer, but it wasn’t until David said it did Max realize that the news made him feel… guilty. Like this was his fault. If he didn’t exist David and Gwen could be awake right now, real smiles on them. Without Gwen passed out in the armchair, coffee of her mug in hand, dripping onto the wooden floor in time with her breaths. 

 

David’s smile fell for a moment. “Until then… you’re just gonna have to hunker down here with us, Max. I’m sorry.”

 

Max scuffed his shoe against the floor. “Whatever. So long as you don’t try to make me tie a bunch of fuckin knots and weave bracelets I’m fine.” 

 

David looks like he doesn’t believe it, which is comical to Max. Whenever Max lies, David is gullable, but whenever Max tells the honest truth it raises David’s suspicions. 

 

He should hold onto that thought for later. Might come in handy. Subversion of expectations. 

 

David looked around the counselor's cabin for a moment, scanning the shelves of Gwen's romance novels and erotic fiction, over to his full collection of campers digest and frowned. 

 

“Are you an artist Max? There’s not much here in terms of... things to do… but plenty of paper, and we’ve got a nice set of markers.”

 

“Not really,” Max said. “Never tried.”

 

“Well, maybe you should.” David offered, standing up and stretching his long legs, and he looked  _ exhausted.  _ “I’ve got a few more phone calls to make and then I have to wait for the state to get back to me… so maybe we should learn how to draw together?”

 

Max wants to tell David that that’s a shitty idea, and really stupid, but he looks to the pile of complicated paperwork with fine black text covering every surfaces traced in with shacky highlighter marks, and looks to David’s tired eyes and can’t say no. 

 

“Fine. We’re the shit at?”

 

David points him in the direction of the “business cabinet” with a stack of printer paper and indeed, a very nice set of markers. Max takes the marker set, a few pencils, and a few pages and trudges back to his temporary bunk. Laying the paper out on the wooden bottom of the bunk, pushing the blankets out of the way and staring at the blank sheet, not knowing where to start. 

 

He heard David’s voice in the other room after a few minutes, and it sounded exasperated and confused. Max assumed it was a call with more people of the law, because David sounded dead and foolish, though Max couldn’t quite make out the words. He wanted so badly to move up to the door and listen to what it is David was saying, but he knows that that would only make it worse, so he fights it off, and just continues to stare at the blank sheet hollowly. 

 

Sure enough, after a while, David knocks at the door and pokes his head in, “Hey Max! Just… finished up the calls.”   
  


“Oh. Nice.”

 

David sits on the wooden bunk, Max must’ve been tired last night to have slept on a straight slab of  _ wood  _ and looks at him with a smile, and looks at his page. “Didn’t start yet?”

 

“Didn't know what to draw.”

 

"Okay,” David says shrugging, and he picks up a peice of paper off the pile, sets it in front of him, pulls a pencil from his pocket and looks at his page wondering where to start drawing the first line. How to give his drawing the right structure. Max is almost positive that David never pursued art before, but if his nimble fingers of playing guitar and tying knots and making friendship bracelets and weaving baskets, and his meticulous handwriting are anything to go by? David might be in a better place than most to start art. 

 

“I uh… dug something up for you.” David said as he sketches out a light first line. “I dug up an old GameBoy. Used to belong to a friend of mine, Jasper. Left it at the camp, and I always kept it. I just plugged it in now, so it’s charging if that’s of any interest to you.”

 

“A GameBoy?”

 

“It’s an old video game console?”

 

“No- I know what it is David, but those things are ancient. What game is on it?”   
  


“I believe it’s Pokemon. That one was my favorite as a kid. Do you like Pokemon Max?”

 

Max does, loves those games. Got a hand me down DS and it was one of the few things that he loved playing with that his parents wouldn’t confiscate. TV? Made you violent. Video games? Made you stupid. Books? Made you arrogant. They looked for any reason to punish him when they were upset with him or upset in general. Max traded cartridges of other cartridges everything from older games like Pokemon Stadium on remastered versions for the DS, to Fire red, Pearl, and spin-off titles like Detective Pikachu, and the Mystery Dungeon series. Even beat Pokemon ranger. 

 

“I played one or two of them. Not bad.”

 

David looked down at his paper with a smile, grateful to have found something. “It’s been a long time since I played. I went on an electronic purge after Gold, Silver, and Crystal came out, so that’s as far as I know,” he admitted. “What generation are they on now?”

 

“Seven,” Max said, a little too quickly. “They uh… I’ve played a lot of generation four. Some generation five.”

 

“Is it still the same as the originals?”

 

“Mostly. More story in the games now, almost eight hundred pokemon. Crazy stuff.”

 

“That’s a lot! Do you have a favorite Pokemon, Max?”

 

“There’s a new one I kinda like.” He admits. “It’s called Zaroark.”   
  


“Oh? I don’t know that one.”   
  


“He’s a dark type pokemon, with a a weird ability. When you send him out he takes the form of a different Pokemon in your party. It’s a dark type, and it wrecks house.”

 

“Why not try to draw him? I want to know what he looks like.”

 

“I can’t draw him well off the top of my head!”

 

“Just try, Max. Here, I’ll draw my favorite Pokemon too.”

 

“Who’s that?”   
  


“I don’t know if I have a favorite… I have a few that I still remember. I love Tangela… Pikachu, Eevee. Do you know Poliwag? They are so silly. Hoppip... Smeargle was always funny to me.”

 

“David, those Pokemon kind of suck.” 

 

“Well, my favorite doesn’t have to be the best ones. They just have to be my favorite.”

 

Max can’t argue against that as David begins to sketch out an Eevee. 

 

“I always loved Eevee,” David admits. “I loved that it could become one of five things. It’s whatever it wants to be!”

 

“Actually… it’s eight now.”

 

“Really?”   
  


“Yeah, they added a grass type, ice type, and fairy type Eeveelution to the mix.”

 

“Fairy-type?”

 

“Long story.”

 

“Well, that’s fine. Just looking at this Eevee knowing it can do anything it wants always made me happy.”

 

“You’re a nerd, David.”

 

Max looks down at his Zaroark drawing. It looks better then he thought it was going to with the spiky black hair and the sharp snout with claws.

 

“Max, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Do you have any other family around here? That you might want to live with until your parent come back?”

 

Max stops, because the way David said it, he wasn’t sure if that was a lie David was telling him, dangling a false hope- or a lie David was telling himself.    
  
“No, all my other family is trash as fuck.” He lied. He didn’t have any other family he knew about and didn’t want to be handed off to a stranger if he did.

 

“Oh… well… Max, I know that this is probably a very scary place to be at.” David said, eyes looking at his Eevee, but his attention on Max, coloring in Zoroark with the thin black marker. “But me and Gwen are doing some research into foster homes… and families… and we don’t know if they’re the right fit for you.”   
  
“Is that so?” Max hopes his voice isn’t quivering. 

 

“And we were wondering… Gwen is currently living with a few roommates and doesn’t have any room, and uh, Quartermaster is… well, off the table.”

 

Max sat there, as he realized where this was going. 

 

“We wanted to know if you’d want to stay with me. I know it’s sudden, but we don’t have anywhere else for you to go. If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll get you somewhere else. But we need to get out of campgrounds by tonight, and need a place for you. I know it’s a lot, but it really is just temporary. I have a guest room that you’re more then welcome too. I won’t make you do camp activities or anything. I’ll let you do what you need, Max. But… I think that’s our-”

 

“Shut up David, it’s fine. I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”   
  
“Max that’s not what I’m saying.”

 

“It’s fine. I’ll go with you, just don’t expect me to be happy.”

 

“I don’t want to expect anything of anyone,” David says. “Nothing is a given.”

 

Max wants to comment that David sounds like a twat, but he bites his tongue. 

 

David looks at him for a moment, looking for something, anything. But nothing has time to surface before David’s phone rings. 

 

The eye contact lasts for a few more fleeting moments, before David picks up the phone, nodding to Max, and strolling back out the door. It must be the state or something. 

 

Max huffs, looking down at his Zoraork. He wishes he had that ability. To magically pretend he was somebody else for a while. To look and act the part, so that other people would hit different “weak spots” That didn’t exist? It would be great. 

 

Instead of David’s Eevee, which only has weaknesses. Normal types were stupid. 

 

Max looks around the bunk. All he had was his pillow and the blankets. Mr. Honeynuts was with the little bits of luggage. Without his home? 

 

Fuck. 

  
It was still kind of sinking in. That his parents were gone? Maybe in a year, they’d go back on that decision. Maybe in three years, he’d see them again. Maybe in five years. 

 

Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. His dad would show up in a week from a business trip. Swearing and cussing Max out, like forgetting it was  _ his  _ fault. 

 

Max wouldn’t mind if His dad hit him. He wanted to see him again. Being this alone? It was terrifying, and he was trying to not think about it.  

 

David talks on the phone for a long time. Max finishes his drawing and doesn’t know what to do with it, now that it’s done. David pokes his head in a maybe half an hour later, phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder, handing Max a GameBoy with a thumbs up. 

 

Max almost isn’t sure what to do with it, at first. David hands it over as he listens intently to whoever’s talking on the other end of the phone. Max flicks it on. There’s a save file on the cartage of Pokemon blue, but it’s only played up to Misty. And thank god, whoever’s save file it was chose Bulbasaur- if they hadn't Max would have to start from the top. Its name was Ivy, but Max still wants to inspect the team. He ventures out and snags himself a Drowsee, and digs around in the PC box for a Pikachu named Thor. He names his Drowsee Neil, and notes to rename his new Mankey Nikki, when he gets to the name rater. 

 

It’s nice to have a distraction, however small it may be.

 

Eventually, David and Gwen must be done with all the chores they have, because by the time Max is speedrunning Pokemon Blue, facing off against Erica with his Ninetails wiping the floor with her Tangela- David's coaxed him into his car- a shoddy looking old one that Max has never seen before, and they're on the road.

 

David is sensible enough to know that Max might not be in a mood for talking, so by the time he's defeated Koga and is on his way to fight the psychic type gym leader Sebrina, David comments that "We're getting close." After maybe an hour of silence. 

 

Max squares off against Sabrina, head dizzy and eyes sore. he'd rather get carsick from playing a videogame right now then stare out the window and surrender himself to thoughts. he's procrastinating his inevitable realization of his own situation by keeping himself occupied, or asleep as long as possible. Sabrina, the few pixels that make up her sprite, have the audacity to tell him that with her psychic powers, she's predicting that He's fighting a losing battle. And for the first time while playing a pokemon game? Max thinks she might be right. 

He thinks as much both before and after David pulls into a dusty driveway, in front of a pale little house that has seen better days. David tells Max that they'll sort all the gear in the morning. Max walks up the brick steps, with his breath held.   
  


David smiles sadly as he fiddles with the lock. "I know it's not much Max, but make yourself at home." before the door pops open. 

Davids points him to a door down a hallway. "That's the guest bedroom," David said. "The bathroom's next door. I'll give you some space- but if you can't sleep I'm in the room at the end of the hall." 

 

Max nods, and follows David's direction, opening the door to the blandest guest room he'd ever seen. PLain, white walls, a little, old desk that smelled like old books. An empty nightstand, also worn from age, and a little bookshelf of children's books and poetry anthologies. 

  
It's the shittiest excuse of a place Max has ever seen in anybody else's house in a long time- and he knows that he's fighting an unwinnable battle. 

 

But somehow, just for a moment, it's heaven as he sinks into the bed.

 

Until he remembers that he isn't tired, and there's nothing to postpone the inevitable.

 

He wonders if he's seen his old bedroom for the very last time.

 

There’s a lot of stuff that Max left at his old home which is probably gone. Photos and shit. He never wrote down the address of an old penpal, a friend from elementary school that moved. 

 

He probably won't ever run his fingers through his favorite copy of Peter Pan ever again, and the clock on his wall that no longer worked, but he kept up anyway because he thought it looked cool? It would probably be in a city dump somewere very soon. His school notebooks, his bed? The two figurines his penpal sent for his birthday two years ago? It's gone, forever probably. 

 

 

He curls into bed and pretends to fall asleep fast. He's too depressed too much else other than sit there and think. So he lies to himself. Hoping that if he pretends sleep has claimed him, it soon will. But his mind and heart are elsewhere, thinking about all the things he'd lost. Swimming further and further away.

 

His secret DS, with his collection of traded cartages. The water bottle at his bedside with the chewed up straw? Those things were so far away now. He might never see them again. 

The door cracks open a bit, and the light makes Max's already shut eyes clench. He just knows it's David checking in on him- and where such an act would usually make him feel angry, now he doesn't know what to feel. David comes into the room, judgeing by the sound of footsteps, and Max hers the soft clattering of china. The door shuts, and Max dares to peek out of one eye. It's a teacup and saucer on the floor- green tea by the smell of it. 

Max doesn't want to accept the kindness in the first place, but smelling the tea? It's almost enough to make his stomach clench. 

Max hated green tea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys were so nice with your comments last time, thank you so MUCH! I love all the comments I got- so sweet and thought out, it made me decide to pick this project back up again when I was going to leave it for dead! Commenting is your way of supporting me FOR FREE! <3 thank you SO SO MUCH!

**Author's Note:**

> Yall.... I got my first ever like. nasty ass hate comment a few weeks ago, and it was AMAZING. Like. I made it!!! I'm cool enough to get haters! Leave a comment, please, nice or not so nice (hopefully constructive) <3 and have a lovely rest of your day/evening!


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